The Picayune Maroon Tide’s volleyball team fell 0-3 against the Long Beach Bearcats Tuesday afternoon. Playing against the Bearcats is no easy task, but Head Coach Courtney Dickens said her team did well.

“I think we’ve played the best I’ve seen us play this year, my girls stepped up,” said Dickens.

The first set ended in a score of 25-23, second set resulted in score of 25-14 and the last set ended with a score of 25-19, all in favor of the Bearcats.

“The first and third set we should of won, what made the difference in us not coming out with the win was our serving,” said Dickens.

The Maroon Tide has struggled this season executing serves. The last set of Tuesday’s game, the Maroon Tide served seven balls out of bounds. Dickens believes if her athletes could have gotten their serves under control they could have possibly turned some of those losses into wins. Once serves are under control, the Maroon Tide will be in a good position to clutch wins during region play.

 

Moving forward, Dickens would like to see her team be more aggressive on offense and get more kills on the ball. Passing has not been a problem for the Maroon Tide.

“The past three years we’ve struggled in our passing but now our passing is really good this year,” said Dickens.

 

Other skills Dickens would like to build upon include, “getting timing down better in our swings. We got to read the court better and keep our opponents guessing on what were going to do.”

Dickens has already had talks with her team on how predictable they can be on offense. They are a young team and she believes these improvements will come.

 

The next match for the Maroon Tide was Sept, 9 against the West Harrison Hurricanes.

“We’ve always matched up pretty well against West Harrison, they’re very scrappy, said Dickens. She added, “If we play how we played against Long Beach we’ll beat them.”